1. Field
This disclosure relates to computer systems for managing orders for and deliveries of goods.
2. Description of Related Art
Automobile dealers often place stock orders once a week for automobile parts that they currently need and parts that they will need within a week. The ordered parts are often delivered once a week to the dealers for placement in the dealer's inventory.
This practice can require a considerable amount of parts to be stored by the dealers and a great deal of space for receiving the parts. To accommodate daily service needs, dealers may also need to place urgent orders between their weekly stock orders. These urgent orders may require multiple deliveries each day to dealers via couriers, raising delivery cost.
Orders from several dealers that are on the same shipment route may also exceed the carrying capacity of the delivery vehicle that travels this route. This can prevent all of the orders from promptly being delivered, can cause dealer dissatisfaction, and can create costly confusion at the shipping platform by assemblies of goods that are too large to fit within their targeted delivery vehicles.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,140 describes a computer system programmed to set and report product delivery dates. The system maintains customer preferences database having delivery and reporting preferences for individual customers. The preferences include preferred early and late delivery limits.
Japanese patent application publication No. 2005-148830 describes an ordering system for goods that is designed to meet dynamically changing market demands. The system calculates amounts of goods to be ordered according to dynamically changing market demands.
Japanese patent application publication No. Hei 8-96033 describes a system for determining an amount of automobile parts to be ordered for automobiles to be assembled. The system determines the amount of parts to be ordered in accordance with the production plan of the automobiles.
Thus, there is a need for a system for managing the ordering and delivery of goods that permits the retailers and the supplier to carry less inventory, reduces the need for emergency orders, and eliminates packing orders that are too large to fit in their targeted delivery vehicles.